Do you know it may take six months or even a year to rank your website on the search engine results pages(SERP)? But, even after giving it your all, you might not get the desired results for your website. The most probable reason behind it can be some SEO mistakes that you might be making.
There are a lot of guides available to better your SEO strategies but finding reliable resources to understand your SEO errors is rare. In fact, knowing how to fix these SEO mistakes in a timely manner is crucial to saving costs and getting results for your website.
In our blog, you’ll know about the SEO mistakes you are probably making and how to fix them. So, let’s begin!
Ten SEO Mistakes You’re Making & How To Correct Them:-
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Not making an appropriate SEO strategy
SEO is not a magic wand that can automatically attract visitors to your website. It involves foolproof strategizing and even probable tweaks to your plan of action when the need arises.
Are you aware that 75% of users explore only the first page of the SERP? So, if your goal is to rank your website in the top results, you need to make a proper strategy. Furthermore, you have to follow the SEO best practices for your on-page, off-page, and technical SEO.
How to fix: Get the help of SEO Toronto experts to ensure your website ranks on the top of SERP without any mistakes.
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Ignoring link errors
Think like your website user for a moment! Imagine your site visitor came to read your blog post and tried to click on your service link. However, the link was broken, and the page showed a 404 error.
How would your website users feel about your site if they came across such a situation? It will definitely frustrate them, and they might never visit your website again. Due to this, the web crawlers might also notice this issue and will probably downgrade your site in the SERP.
How to fix: Have an SEO audit of your whole website and recognize the broken links. Examine every link that’s broken and add the right URL or redirect the page.
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Using Spammy Techniques
Did you know the line between many white hat SEO and black hat SEO techniques is pretty fine? Some people think that by engaging in spammy methods, they can manipulate Google’s algorithm to get higher rankings in the SERP. But they don’t know that by using spammy techniques, they will get into the black hat territory, which will definitely lead to Google penalties.
Some of the techniques which come under black hat SEO are as follows:-
- Keyword stuffing
- Cloaking
- Hidden links
- Paying for backlinks
- Duplicate content
- Clickbait
- Content automation
How to fix: Never ever opt for cheap SEO services that promise quick results for your website. There is a high chance that they’ll use spammy techniques to rank your website. Remember, there’s no backing out from it, as Google can de-index your website or blacklist the domain.
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Neglecting the importance of helpful content
“Content is the reason search began in the first place.” Lee Odden, a pioneer of B2B marketing, couldn’t have conveyed the importance of content in a much better way.
Google has singlehandedly restored the significance of content with its helpful content update. However, keeping aside the Google updates, it’s a big mistake to write content which isn’t valuable for the user.
For example, if you have written content on your website by focusing on the search engines rather than your users, it’s not a good approach.
How to fix: Go through your whole website and ensure it’s beneficial for your target audience. Whenever you have to write a new content piece, write with a proper strategy in place and that too, for your users.
Pro Tip: Try to write content by following the EEAT(Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, & Trustworthiness) principle.
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Overlooking mobile optimization for your website
More than 58% of global internet traffic comes from mobile devices, and this percentage is increasing at a rapid pace. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile screens, chances are you are losing the biggest chunk of visitors. Websites which aren’t optimized for mobile-responsiveness can be termed outdated in today’s time.
Mobile optimization includes a lot more than designing and developing a website for mobile as it also includes improving the user experience. Users will not like such a website, and neither will the search engines. This will negatively affect your website’s rank in the SERP.
How to fix: Pay more attention to your website’s mobile version than the desktop version. If your website isn’t built with mobile optimization in the original plan, it may require a contemporary website design. It will cost you considerably but it’ll be worth it, in terms of the return on investment you’ll get!
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Prioritizing any type of traffic instead of converting traffic
It feels amazing to see a huge number of website visitors when analyzing your website analytics. Most people who own a website would be delighted by it.
But if these site users aren’t converting and purchasing your products or services, that’s a bad sign! A professional SEO executive with considerable experience wouldn’t have optimized your website for all types of visitors. They would have optimized it according to your target audience.
The worst part is those visitors who come to buy what you’re offering will exit your website once they realize it’s not helpful. As a result, those prospective leads will head to your competitor’s website.
How to fix: Optimize your website according to what your target audience is searching for. You should do SEO as per your local area.
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Non-existent local SEO for your local business
Search engines are looking for appropriate data, and that includes information about your local area. If you’re offering local business services but your website doesn’t mention the location enough times or at relevant places, it’ll affect your site’s ranking.
For example, if you search for Local SEO Toronto, you will find SEO Toronto experts’ website in the top results of the SERP. Moreover, you’ll get what you’re looking for on our site, and that is SEO services in Toronto.
In case you’re expecting Google to know the location of your business, chances are you’ll not get too many local leads. It will not only negatively impact your website’s ranking but your business as well.
How to fix: For those businesses that provide products and services on a local level, they should optimize their website for the local audience. It also includes the city, nation and other relevant details.
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Content which is outdated and not upto the current time
Do you know that regularly updated content always beats old and outdated content, which is not helpful to the users? As a matter of fact, search engines also give preference to content which is updated regularly.
The issue comes when your website is old enough and has many blogs which need to be updated according to the contemporary times. Furthermore, most business-owners don’t give much value to updating their websites.
Search engines know about the last time your content was updated. If you aren’t rewriting and optimizing your website’s previously posted content, your site’s ranking will suffer.
How to fix: Audit your whole website’s content on a regular basis. If your keyword ranking is being hit or your earlier content isn’t upto the mark, update it immediately.
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A slow-loading website with slower-loading pages
To delight your website users, your site must load fully in just a few seconds. Nobody wants to stay on a website that takes forever to load.
A slow-loading website is the reason for a higher bounce rate. If your website’s bounce rate is higher than 60%, it will signal to Google that the content isn’t up to the mark, affecting SERP rankings.
How to fix: You need to find the source of the issue. Often, it’s a piece of code with bugs causing your website to slow down.
If your website has many images and other multimedia, that can significantly slow down your website. To know more about this situation, link your website to Google console.
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Missing Alt text and broken images
Alternative tags, or alt tags, are HTML attributes that provide a description of the content. To deal with on-page SEO issues, you have to focus on alt text. There can be times when images on your website aren’t able to render because of an inappropriate filename or the use of an incorrect extension. In such instances, an alt tag for the image will explain its content.
How to fix: In the HTML code, look out for the image component and include an alt tag in it.
Conclusion
SEO mistakes can be costly, and each one of them can waste all the effort you’ve put into ranking your website in the SERP. However, these SEO errors can be rectified with a little effort. You should try not to make these mistakes in the first place by following SEO best practices for your website.
Doing SEO for your website is a long journey in which mistakes are bound to happen, but what matters is to correct them as soon as you can. The best approach will be to avoid these SEO mistakes and try to rank your website in the SERP.
Are you looking for foolproof SEO services for your website? If your answer is a yes, get in touch with SEO Toronto experts today. We will fix all the SEO issues of your website along with ranking it on the SERP in record time. Contact us now to get our top-rated SEO services.
